1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to artificial Christmas trees, and particularly, to artificial Christmas trees having foldable branches to facilitate the storage thereof.
2. The Prior Art
Artificial Christmas trees have been known for many years. To reduce the storage volume of such trees, it has been also known for many years to removably mount the branches on the trunk of the artificial tree by plugging the branches into complementary holes in the trunk. While this arrangement does permit the storage of an artificial tree in a relatively small space, the process of assembling the tree and, to a lesser extent, of disassembling the tree are quite time consuming. Thus, it has been suggested in the past of color code the holes in the tree trunks and the ends of the branches, whereby to readily arrange the branches on the trunk. This has reduced the assembly time, but it is still relatively time consuming.
It has also been suggested for many years to pivotally mount branches on a trunk whereby to permit the branches to be swung from a folded position in which they are substantially parallel to the trunk to an extended position in which they extend outwardly from the trunk to define a simulated or artificial tree. Such a structure was suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 1,683,637 granted to E. H. Trimpe on Sept. 11, 1928 and in U.S. Pat. No. 3,030,720 granted to Osswald et al on Apr. 24, 1962. However, both of these patents require elaborate assembly techniques, and, in the case of the Oswald et al patent, a somewhat complex structure, whereby to render both of these prior art patents of little importance in commercial development of artificial Christmas trees.
More recently, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,574,102 and 3,639,196 have been granted to T. Hermanson, which have disclosed an artificial Christmas tree with foldable branches. The structure described in the two Hermanson patents require some form of bifurcation at the ends of the branches in order to enable the branches to be pivotally mounted on the trunk, which bifurcation requires special tooling not heretobefore employed in the making of artificial Christmas trees.